A new tasting room has opened along the 290 Wine Trail in Stonewall that wants visitors to taste first and read the label later — literally. Acquired Taste Wine, owned by Dave Bryant, pours three distinct labels built around varied fruit sourcing and unconventional blends rather than a single estate or house style.
The winery rejects the idea that a tasting room needs to be defined by one label, estate, or tradition, according to a release cited by CultureMap San Antonio. Its most attention-grabbing project, Double Blind, bottles wines completely anonymously, leaving off varietals, regions, and vintages until a customer scans a QR code after tasting, per Acquired Taste Wines. The line uses Texas grapes including Touriga Nacional and Merlot, an approach meant to strip away brand bias before a guest forms an opinion.
Another label, called Temporary Wines, plans to release limited-production bottles this fall that will never be repeated once they sell out, per the same account. The lineup includes Heart Break, a set of messy reds meant for immediate drinkability, and Float Wines, a rosé and white blend intended for sipping around water. A separate campaign within Temporary Wines pairs a sangiovese and a tempranillo blending grapes described as red state and blue state varieties, and the bottles carry labels designed to double as temporary tattoos.
A Living Room Built for Tasting, Not Just Pouring
The Stonewall tasting room at 239 Miracle Mile leans into a relaxed, residential feel rather than a traditional bar setup. Midcentury modern furnishings and Bauhaus posters fill much of the space, with living room-style seating arrangements taking up the bulk of the floor plan alongside a bar along one wall, according to the CultureMap report. The room is open 11 am to 5 pm Thursday through Saturday, with appointments available outside those regular hours.
Bryant also owns Texas Wine Consulting, and his path to Stonewall runs through some of Napa Valley's most recognizable wine names. Before launching Acquired Taste Wine, he managed luxury California operations including Alpha Omega Winery, John Anthony Vineyards, and Solage Calistoga, then relocated to Texas in 2019 to become General Manager of Texas Wine Collective, according to Acquired Taste Wines. Through Texas Wine Consulting, he has also partnered with Swiss consulting winemaker Jean Hoefliger, who has worked with top California producers, to advise Texas vineyards on viticulture strategy, as reported by Decanter.
Industry Ties Beyond the Tasting Room
Bryant's résumé extends into regional philanthropy as well. In 2021 he co-founded the nonprofit Texas Wine Auction Foundation alongside industry leaders Valerie Elkins and Chris Brundrett, an organization that has raised more than $1 million in its first four years for hospitality worker mental health and educational programs, Decanter reports. That network of relationships across winemaking, consulting, and industry advocacy underpins the label-agnostic model now on display in Stonewall.
Opening Into a Booming — and Strained — Wine Corridor
Acquired Taste Wine's debut lands in a Hill Country wine scene that keeps expanding at a rapid clip. The regional trade group Texas Hill Country Wineries reported its active membership grew to 69 wineries by mid-2026, more than half of the region's 120-plus wineries and up sharply from just 24 members 17 years earlier, per the San Antonio Express-News. The Texas Hill Country AVA spans 9 million acres, hosts more than 100 wineries, and draws between 2.6 million and 3 million visitors a year, making Gillespie County the nation's second most-visited wine tourism destination behind Napa Valley, according to Texas Hill Country Wineries.
That growth carries real weight for the state economy. A 2025 WineAmerica economic impact report found the Texas wine industry generates $24.39 billion in annual economic activity and supports more than 136,000 jobs in farming, manufacturing, and tourism, ranking Texas second nationally behind California. The Texas Department of Agriculture separately lists the state as the fifth-largest wine producer in the country, with eight designated AVAs and more than 600 commercial wine producers across 14,000 vineyard acres.
The boom hasn't come without friction. Hoodline previously reported on floods and freeze damage hitting Hill Country vineyards, including a March 2026 freeze and July 2026 flooding along the Pedernales River that pushed many winemakers to blend local grapes with fruit sourced from the Texas High Plains — a pattern reflected in Acquired Taste's own varied sourcing. Local law enforcement data from Gillespie County also indicates that public intoxication and driving while intoxicated account for roughly 60% of all annual arrests in nearby Fredericksburg amid the tourism boom, according to Texas Fine Wine, with community leaders and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission discussing possible open-container ordinance changes along the corridor.
